Only the Stars Can Know

Two

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A/N: Even though I hardly have any reviews for this, I going to continue it anyways! So there!! Big meanies.

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The pounding in her head seemed to intensify with each passing moment and the glare from the heated sun behind her eye lids made it all the worse. She rolled her head to the side and moaned, her voice harsh and broken even in her own ears. She hated to imagine what it sounded like to others. Others that were no longer there, she reminded herself. It was just her and her rescuer. The man with the kind voice to disguise his evil heart and those dead blue eyes.

She forced herself to move, rolling and pushing up on her hands and knees with all the strength she could muster. Her arms trembled at the effort but she refused to give up, she had shown enough weakness in the past months to last her and her entire kingdom a life time or two. She took a deep breath and once more made herself move; stopping only when she was on her knees her bottom resting on her ankles and feet. Her head hung off to the side, not ready to move yet and colors swirled around her vision from underneath closed lids causing her stomach to turn.

Strong hands gripped her shoulders, the hold strong and powerful yet the callused fingers digging into her skin did not hurt. She could not feel the bruising force through the other aches that rolled down her body in thick waves. “You should rest some more,” her rescuer told her, his voice soothing to her ears even though the thought of him and what he had done causing her blood to run cold. He had the voice of an angel to disguise the demon that he was.

Her head rolled to the side and she lost the energy to even open her eyes and look at him, “Must... get away...” she rasped her voice dry and her lips cracked with the effort to move them.

The cool touch of ceramic touch her parched mouth and water lightly splashed on her parted lips. She lifted up a weak hand and tried to knock the jug away, “No... Poison.”

She felt the water again and then a sigh of irritation, “I would not save you Princess, only to poison you later on.” He paused and laid a hand across the back of her neck, trying to tilt her head back so she could drink easier, “You’re dehydrated and more than half starved. Your father would hate it if I had to return a corpse to him.”

She swayed as she knelt there, “Father...” she was about to say more but the liquid poured slowly into her mouth and she involuntarily swallowed. The water tasted better than anything she had every tasted before and soon she was gulping the much needed drink eagerly. She tore her mouth away from the cool jug with a gasp, turning her head to the side to breathe deeply, just laying the comfort of the darkness behind her eyes. If she never again looked at him, perhaps it would be fine to think of him as not the monster that she had first witnessed. Perhaps if she replayed those words enough through her mind one day she might even believe them.

She felt him move her and that’s when she realized that she was cradled in his lap, his arm supporting her back and neck as she drank. She whimpered, once more ashamed of her weakness, as she reached and gently touched the side of her face, feeling the thickness of her own blood caked onto her skin. She hissed and tried to move, weakly pushing him away, “Bath,” she mumbled through her swollen and cut lips.

“If I leave you, Princess,” he said, his voice a quite whisper, “do you promise not to try to run off.”

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and tried not thinking about the fact that if she was strong enough that was exactly what she would to. She shivered and resisted the urge to push him away again before giving him a slow nod.

He didn’t answer her and she didn’t comment on the fact that it was fast becoming night in the desert and probably difficult to see her answer, yet he gently placed her back onto the thick blankets that rested under her. She didn’t hear him leave but the heat that came from his body slowly faded and she knew that she was left in the dark. She took a deep breath, the air crisp and comforting in her lungs, as she opened her eyes and stared at the only thing that gave her any solace and pasted no judgment onto her battered soul.

The stars shown with all the brightness in the world and the moon glowed with unearthly beauty even in its half-full form. Please, she prayed, please, Allah save me from this demon. She knew she probably no right to ask her God for anything else, he had, after all granted her one wish already. Be careful what you wish for, someone once told her, you may get it, but it might not be what you really want.

Footsteps softly padded into the thick sands and she felt her heart pounding in her chest, threatening to break free. The man that was with her would never be so loud, if he walked away with out a sound why did he not return the same way?

The intruder knelt beside her and gently pulled the blanket that covered her down to her mid thigh. She tightly shut her eyes and forced her body to relax hoping that the person would think her dead and leave at once. Arms tightly corded with compacted muscle lifted her with care and ease as if she didn’t weigh a thing. Aladdin never lifted her with such gracefulness before. His right arm slipped around the back of her shoulders, mush like her savior had done when he made her drink the water. His other hand gently slipped one the sleeves of her tattered clothes off her thin shoulder, exposing it to the night sky. She stiffed despite her efforts to play dead and began to struggle. A scream rose in her throat but her body was so weak and torn it escaped her as a pitiful howl.

“Easy, Princess,” he spoke to her in a soothing voice, “relax, if I do anything wrong, just let me know.”

She whimpered at his puzzling words and cursed him in her mind for scaring her into thinking he was someone else. A cool wet cloth touched the skin of her neck and ever so softly he began to clean the grime from her body. Twice he had to get up and leave to her empty and refill the bucket that he was using but she had not the strength to ask him where he was getting all the water in a middle of a desert.

He never once touched her in a way that left a sick taste in her mouth and when he stared to wash her legs she found herself drifting into her dreams. Fight it as she might, when he placed his hands upon her feet she was fast asleep.

TBC...